Mission

MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease was founded in 2001 with a mission to translate laboratory discoveries into prevention, treatment and cures for Alzheimer’s, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Driven by a sense of urgency due to our nation’s burgeoning aging population, MIND seeks to accelerate therapies that lessen the devastating toll of disease on patients and families.

While the symptoms differ, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS and Huntington’s diseases have characteristics that point to related mechanisms. We can now see that advances in one disease are likely to hold promise for the other disorders. MIND is poised to take advantage of this synergy by encouraging researchers to collaborate, communicate, take risks, and defy conventional thinking.

Infrastructure

• Broadest range of neurodegenerative disease research in the world – from basic research to clinical trial design – consisting of 17 different laboratories with more than 150 scientists, physicians, technical staff and fellows.
• Exceptionally talented researchers who have made outstanding contributions to their fields, joined by rising stars in neuroscience.
• Multifaceted, collaborative research approach engaging both physicians and scientists.
• Integrated research effort that seeks opportunities for cross-fertilization of ideas and approaches among different diseases.
• Innovative drug discovery efforts geared to slow or stop progression of diseases – the first high throughput drug screening program in an academic medical center.
• Access to the broad clinical trial capabilities of the MassGeneral to ensure rapid deployment of potential new drugs.
• State-of-the-art facility designed to foster creativity and teamwork with open laboratories, shared technology and vibrant intellectual life.
• Equipment and resources that are essential for translational research: high-tech microscopes, gene sequencing machines, a human brain bank, drug screening robotics, and a laboratory for testing new disease-fighting strategies in mice.
• International collaborations to disseminate findings and incorporate new approaches.

Leadership

The institute was founded by and is directed by Anne Young, MD, PhD, chief of neurology and Julianne Dorn Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Laboratories are directed by MD’s, PhD’s and MD/PhD’s who are members of the faculty of Harvard Medical School and have appointments in the MGH departments of Neurology, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry and Pathology.

Faculty include Robert Brown, MD, D. Phil; Marian DiFiglia, PhD; Bradley Hyman, MD, PhD; Rudy Tanzi, PhD; Jang-Ho Cha, MD, PhD; Steven Hersch, MD, PhD; Michael Schwarzschild, MD, PhD and Wilma Wasco, PhD, Dimitri Krainc, MD, PhD, Matthew Frosch, MD, PhD, who are joined by fifteen assistant professors and twenty instructors. MIND’s executive director is Janice Hayes-Cha. For a complete list see Faculty.

Location

The Institute is located in Building 114 of the Charlestown Navy Yard, in the heart of the Massachusetts General Hospital research campus. The Institute’s seventeen laboratories occupy approximately 40,000 square feet of space in the building on three separate floors.

MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease
Building 114-2001, 16th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129
(617) 726-1278 • e-mail mghmind@partners.org
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